MY SUPERWOMAN

He never loved me......

"It's Metastatic Breast Cancer 4th stage", said the Doctor.

There was a stunned silence in the room. I was in a daze. With tears rolling down my cheeks, I asked the doctor in a stammered voice, "How long do I have?"

Doctor said," Metastatic Cancer is actually incurable but treatable. It mostly depends on individual factors that may have some effect on your prognosis. It differs from person to person. One's response to treatment may not match the other's. Still there are some chances of partial or complete recovery from it." Hearing that I interlocked my fingers with my husband's and held his hand tightly. But he slipped off his hands from mine.

"Don't lose hope, Agni. Stay strong mentally and physically. Take good care of your wife Athreya", said the Doctor to my husband.

When we were on the way back home, number of questions were oscillating in my mind. "How will my family cope without me? What will happen to my daughter? Where will I be looked after? How am I going to fight this battle? What will happen at the end? Will it be painful? How will this society treat me? What will they think of me? I was just horrified. Athreya didn't even utter a single word. Breaking the silence, I said to him, "What are we going to do? Shall we proceed with the treatment? Are you ready for this? I hope we shall get through this united. I love you."

The four words which he uttered was, "LET US GET DIVORCED?"

"What?", I asked with an appalling tone. Well! that wasn't the reply I was hoping to hear.

He neither saw my face nor looked at my eyes but continued saying, " I can't tolerate you anymore. You just don't suit me at all. It's a shame and an additional burden to me to live with a person diagnosed with cancer. You have always been very irresponsible and never made me happy. I in fact regret marrying you. I am done with you."

Meanwhile, we reached home. There stood our little princess Samudhra welcoming us with her charismatic smile. She hugged me and said that she had won the 1st prize in the Healthy Kid competition age group between 5 and 10. As a proud mother, I said, "That's my girl." After the supper, I made my daughter sleep. My husband and I had a whole-night argument. Finally, the argument ended up in his favor of getting divorced. It was during that argument I came to know that he did not love me anymore and had an affair with one of his colleagues, Jacquline, who also a good friend of mine. At the time of verdict in the court, the judge asked Samudhra to choose between us, she chose her dad over me which wasn't a surprise at all. I just asked her a nagging question which was in my mind, "My baby, do you hate me?" She probably might have given me a reasonable reply, "My classmates are mocking you and making fun of me for your haircut." I said, " Baby just look at me. You are my cute little munchkin. Remember one thing, mumma always loves you with all my heart. Be a good kid. Don't trouble your dad unnecessarily".

I left the place with tears after some goodbye kisses. All the way home, I was just out of my mind thinking about what had happened and what is going to happen next. When I reached home, it was no more the very same home that it used to be. It just seemed to be a void place with furniture everywhere. There was a question in my mind whether I had to go for the treatment after all these unfair happened. There wasn't even a single reason at all to convince myself to go further for the treatment. What would be the purpose of my life when I had none to care for. For Whom should I live? Everything meant nothing to me at that moment. I said, "It's better to die with cancer than being lonelier." I just hugged my pillow and started crying after all that was what I could do.

The next day, I woke up with severe headache, chest pain and cramps even nausea. That was a hell lot of pain. But that pain was not worser than lonliness, emptiness, being ignored or betrayed and forsaken by my own baby. With each day passing, I could see myself becoming weaker and weaker. I was oscillating with haunting memories. One thing was certain that I was slowly being consumed by cancer. So I decided to have a change of place which I thought would do a lot better after all these.